The Intricacies of Legend
by V.Evergreen
Summary: The old man who sits by the lake doesn't say an awful lot. The trick is to listen.


It was three days after Harriet's fifth birthday when she first spoke to the funny old man who always sat by the lake. She lived with her mum and dad on top of the hill that looked out over it. She was playing in the garden when she first saw him. She looked at him for a minute, unseen by him from the distance, but he didn't even move. When her mum called her in for lunch she left without a word but somehow he didn't leave her thoughts.

"Mummy?" She asked, sitting at the table and trying to speak around a mouthful of ham sandwich.

"Hmm?" Her mother acknowledged, barely even looking up from the washing up.

"Who's the man at the bottom of the garden?" She asked, her voice curious enough that her mother looked around.

Her mother's brow furrowed, "Who?" She said.

"The man at the bottom of the garden." Harriet repeated slowly, in the tone that her mum used with her when she couldn't understand things. "By the lake."

Her mother's attention returned back to the washing up, "I don't know, sweetheart."

Harriet frowned, "You didn't even look!" She accused. Her mother rolled her eyes (which was unfair because the one time she had done it her Dad had told her to stop being so cheeky) and made a great show of walking to the back door and peering down the garden.

Harriet looked at her expectantly when she returned. "Just a man from the village." Her mother said as though the subject was closed.

"But why's he there?" Asked Harriet. As far as she was concerned her mum always had the answers and her Dad always told her when she didn't understand something it was best to ask questions.

She missed the small sigh her mother gave but she caught the tone of voice that normally meant she was about to be told to go play by herself for a little while, "I don't know." Her mother said, "Maybe he's fishing."

"But he doesn't have a pole!"

"So he doesn't." Her mother said before casting her eyes outside quickly, "Why don't you play outside for a little while," she said as Harriet thought she might, "and I'll come and get you when it's time to come in."

Harriet didn't answer but slipped off the chair and walked outside. A few of her toys were strewn across the grass from where she left them before lunch but they didn't seem as exciting as they had before. Instead she wandered back down to the garden wall that looked over the lake and peeked over at the man again. If she squinted she could just see that he looked like he was sitting down and he had a lot of white hair. He was sitting there staring at the lake, just like he was half an hour ago.

She glanced furtively back at the kitchen window where she could her mother had her back turned through it. A plan started to take place in her head. What if she went down to the lake just to ask the man what he was doing? Her Dad walked her down there to feed the ducks sometimes so she knew the way and it was close enough that if she really listened hard she would be able to hear her mum shouting for her to come in. Only one thought stopped her; both her parents had always told her not to talk to strangers, and in particular strange men. But did it really count if she talked to them first? She decided it didn't.

Arms and legs suddenly clumsy with excitement she clambered over the low garden wall and began her decent down the hill as fast as she dared. She stopped when she was still a little way away when she realised that she didn't know what to say to him. He was just sitting looking out at the lake, with his back almost turned to her, shredding blades of grass with knarled hands before letting them go to be swept away by the weak breeze.

"Are you going to stand the all day?" Came a sudden gruff voice.

Harriet started. She walked forward a little bit further but didn't get too close. He hadn't sounded very friendly at all, not like the other old people she knew like her grandparents or the woman who ran the corner shop in the village.

When she didn't reply the old man looked around sharply. When he saw he standing there he sighed as he took in her height. He sighed, "Are you lost?" He asked his voice less sharp this time.

Mutely, she shook her head.

He tried again, "Where are your parents?"

She pointed up to where she could just see her garden wall at the top of the hill she had run down. The old man turned his weathered face to the direction she was pointed and nodded, "You're the Peter's girl," he said in understanding, "don't you think you should go back up to your parents?" His voice had that tone about it when her mum asked her questions that weren't really questions, but instructions.

She shook her head again, "They said I could play outside." She said quietly. It wasn't a lie but it wasn't exactly the truth either. From the look the man gave her she was pretty sure he knew he wasn't getting the full truth.

"Sure they didn't mean just in the garden?" He asked. He was looked at her and it took Harriet less than a second to decide this was probably the oldest man she'd ever seen. It looked like someone had drawn pencil lines on his face before rubbing them out, leaving his skin course and crumpled. He had sharp cheekbones that looked like they might cut through his skin at any moment. When he brought a hand up to brush flyaway hair from his eyes Harriet wondered how he managed to use them at all; they were such boney and knarled things!

"What are you doing here?" She blurted out before she could stop herself. The man narrowed his clear blue eyes and she felt her face turn red.

"Waiting." He said gruffly.

He didn't say anything else. She stood there for a moment before taking a step forward, feeling much more talkative since he'd actually replied. "What for?" She asked curiously.

He turned back to look at the lake, "Never you mind. Shouldn't you be getting home? Your mother will worry." But it was too late. He'd already given her one answer and she decided she was going to stay until she got some more.

"What you waiting for?" She asked again. The man ignored her. She decided to change tactics, "Please?" She wheedled. He turned to look at her again and she remebered what her Granddad had told her to do if she wanted something. She opened her eyes as wide as she could and made her lip tremble. She didn't know why but it usually worked.

Apparently this time was no exception, "I'm waiting for a friend."

"Is he meeting you here?"

"I don't know."

"Then how do you know if he's coming?"

"I just do."

"Did he phone you?" The old man smiled before answering, "No. He didn't."

There was a silence for a second, "How does he know which bit of the lake you're by?"

"He doesn't."

"If you got a boat you could sit in the middle of the lake and them he'd be able to see you." Said Harriet, feeling quite proud of her solution.

For some reason the man winced at the mention of a boat. "I don't have a boat." He said at last.

Harriet consider that for a moment before another idea popped into her head, "What if-"

"Would you like to hear a story?" The man said abruptly.

He had the sort of tone that her Dad used when she asked too many questions (though he did always tell her to ask questions) but she didn't usually get a story out of it.

"Yes, please!" She squealed, sitting on the grass next to the man with her legs crossed and looking up expectantly. The old man seemed a little taken aback at her enthusiasm. He scratched his heard and looked around for inspiration. He was looking out at the lake when he finally smiled.

"Have you heard the story of the sword in the stone?"

The old man began to talk and with his words painted pictures in he mind of brave knights or white horses and beautiful queen's who saved themselves rather than let someone so it for them. But most of all he talked of a King. A man named Arthur. He was her favourite. The old man smiled when he reached the end of his story only for her to ask for another one. The story drew her in until she forgot she was Harriet Peters in 2013 and instead she was someone so very different.

"Don't you think you had better get back home?" He asked, his voice much kinder than it had been when she first tumbled down the hill to see why he was there.

Her face paled a little bit when she realised how long she had been there, she really hoped that her mum hadn't noticed, but she suddenly realised something.

"What's your name?" She asked looking up at him, still sitting cross legged on the ground.

He seemed startled by the question, as though it was the last thing he expected and he took a moment to answer. "Emrys." He said eventually, looking back at the lake, now ablaze in afternoon sun.

She smiled and got up, "I'm Harriet. Goodbye Emrys!" She smiled as she ran back up the hill, scrabbling with her hands to get a hold of the grass sometimes. When she reached her low garden wall she looked cautiously into the kitchen window, only to see her mum going abut her usual business, obviously not having known she had left the garden.

She was about to go back inside when she darted back to the wall and looked over. Emrys sat overlooking the lake, perhaps still waiting for his friend, and she decided she would go down and see him again. Maybe tomorrow, though she might tell her parents where she was going this time.

~o~o~o~

Time carried on and all things changed as they were wont to do. Leaves shrivelled on branches and fell to the ground, the days got shorter and Harriet moved up to the big girls school.

All things changed with one notable exception. Emrys still sat by the lake, day by day, waiting for his friend.

Harriet went down to talk to him often. He almost always pretended (Harriet was almost completely sure it was all an act) to be grumpy but he smiled when he told her stories they were always about the same group of people, the knights of Camelot.

On one particularly blustery day her mum had walked her down the hill to make sure she didn't fall over and had ended up staying to hear the story. She liked them although when they went back to the house she had told Harriet that they weren't true; that they weren't even the same as the legends. It didn't matter either way; Harriet much preferred what Emrys had to tell her.

It soon became a routine. She would venture down, sometimes with a flask of tea and a juice box sent from her mother, and Emrys would tell her stories of castles and sword fights.

She still didn't really know why Emrys sat there. He always said that he waiting for his friend when she asked but she never saw anyone else but him by the lake.

Emrys's stories were without a doubt the favourite part of her day. She would go down there maybe three times a week and he would always have a new one waiting.

So it was quite a blow when he just disappeared.

There was no warning just one day he was...gone. No trace of him or any hint as to what happened. Her mum said he might have been visiting family but he had never mentioned any to Harriet. She would have checked up on him, or at least asked one of her parents to, but she realised with a start that she had no idea where he lived.

Time continued to pass.

Harriet still went down to the lake sometimes. It was a nice place and now that she was even older she would sit and do her home work there or read a book. She liked the books but somehow they never compared to the stories that she used to be told.

She was about to jump the garden wall again (she was tall enough to jump it now without needing to climb) when a strange sight met her eyes. There were two men just sitting by the lake, right where Emrys used to. Quietly, she crept down the hill until she could hear them.

Out of the two men one was black haired and one blonde. It was the blonde who spoke first, "It's changed a lot." He murmured looking around, "I- I can't even believe how different things are now."

The black haired one turned to smile at the other, "You'll get used to it." He said simply but with a soft smile, "I did."

The blonde snorted, "I think you might have had a little more time to get used to it than me." He was smiling but it faded when he looked at the lake, "At least you're the same." He said quietly to his companion.

The black haired one gave a short laugh, "You should have seen me before you got here. I looked about a thousand years old. I changed quite a bit."

Harriet frowned as she edged a little closer. Their conversation didn't make any sense at all. She couldn't make either heads or tails of it.

The blonde smiled again and playfully shoved his friend, "You're looking alright on it though, _Emrys_." Harriet couldn't stop the gasp that escaped her. Both men's heads snapped to look at her and suddenly she couldn't breathe. The black haired man's eyes were the exact shade of blue that Emrys had had. The very same vivid colour.

"Harriet?" He asked incredulously, taking a step forward. She took an equal step back and fell up the grassy hill behind her.

"You know her?" Asked the blonde with an eye roll.

Emrys didn't reply but knelt down at her level. She couldn't believe it. It was the very same man who had told her those stories all those years ago. Not a relative of some sort- how would they recognise her? But the very same man.

"I thought you were gone." She said, eyes still wide. Memories of evenings spent with a flask of tea and old myths flashed through her mind.

"I was." He said. Now she looked at him he looked so much happier than she had ever seen him. He didn't just look young but he looked so much more alive.

"But how-" her voice couldn't finish her sentence when her mind was screaming that such a thing wasn't possible. She continued to stare. The blonde man moved forward and looked at her curiously. She stared unabashedly back at him. Emrys looked at he and then between them.

"This is my friend." He said, smiling as she gaped. So it was true, she thought, he really had been waiting all this time for his friend to come and find him.

"Well, I wouldn't go that far." Said the blonde man with a snort. He was smiling as he said and Emrys rolled his eyes.

"Don't listen to him," whispered Emrys conspiritily, "he's a bit of a prat."

The blonde man gave a short bark of laughter, "Really _Mer_lin? All this time-"

Harriet was quite sure in that moment that she forgot how to breath. In fact she was almost sure of it, seeing as how she choked on absolutely nothing at all. Emrys- or Merlin closed his eyes and smiled ruefully. When he looked at her was almost as if he was trying to gauge if she believed him or if she thought was all an elaborate pretence. He looked unsurprised when she stared back. For Harriet everything had just dropped into place.

The reason why Emrys's stories never agreed with the myths, the reason why he sat waiting by a lake for his friend, the reason why he was now a young black haired man instead of the crippled and bent old man she had come to know. It was all because he was Merlin.

She looked back to the blonde man, "You must be King Arthur." She whispered ferverenty.

He fidgeted uncomfortably and Merlin gave a snort of laughter, "The title's still a bit of a sore spot-"

"How would you feel if you came back to life and your kingdom had vanished?"

"-but yes he is."

"Woman n the throne now doesn't even _do_ anything-"

"Arthur!" Merlin snapped.

Arthur ducked his head, "So maybe I'm not completely over it."

Harriet continued looking between them. It was ridiculous, mad and absolutely magical. "Why are you back?" She asked tentatively, trying not to sound rude, "I thought you were meant to come back when-"

"Albion's need was greatest?" Emrys quoted back to her.

Arthur winced and ran a hand through his hair. It struck Harriet that he wasn't actually that old. She'd grown up since Emrys had been away- she'd be sixteen in three months but king who stood in front of her couldn't have been that much older. Under thirty at least- and yet he was historic. A legend.

"Turns out Albion's need is about to get pretty great." He muttered.

Fear thrilled though her as she looked at his face, if he had risen then things were about to change. Everything was about to change.

She almost started to panic when the calm voice of the old man she had known as a child soothed her. "Don't worry." Emrys reassured her, "Destiny's is going to run its course as it has done before. Magic will be brought back to the land and Albion will unite. All will be as it should." She looked at him and saw nothing but a sense of calm and peace.

She'd almost relaxed when Arthur coughed slightly and gave them a pointed look. "You know," he began lightly and fighting a smile, "I never actually legalised magic."

Merlin looked back to Harriet and rolled his eyes. A quick flash of gold and the peace was broken by the indignant squawk of the King of Camelot being tipped over the edge and into the lake. She looked at both of them. Glaring murder and laughing.

Maybe they would be fine after all.


End file.
